


The Massacre Of Garreg Mach

by OrcaWolf



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Character Death, Conquest, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Invasion, Loss, Revolution, Sad Ending, Same-Sex Marriage, Sieges, War, church, everyone dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23316004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrcaWolf/pseuds/OrcaWolf
Summary: I don’t usually alter environments, settings or characters but this is a favor for a friend._______________________________________________________________The empire is attacking Garreg Mach and The All-Girls Officers Academy. The Monastery is extremely outnumbered. How much loss can Byleth take?
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez & Randolph, Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra, Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth, Linhardt von Hevring & Hubert von Vestra, My Unit | Byleth/Rhea
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	The Massacre Of Garreg Mach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saint_Boot](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Saint_Boot).



Byleth brushes back her light green hair as she prepares for the greatest battle of her life. Her hair was the same color as Rhea’s. Her father never prepared her for a battle like this. Garreg Mach is under siege. It has been for two weeks. Edelgard launched an attack on Garreg Mach for reasons unbeknownst to herself. It’s obvious enough that her main target was the Monastery and the All-girls Officer’s Academy.

The empire’s units have spread out outside the Monastery. Their numbers are large. Larger than the church. 

“Destroy them for even stepping on this sacred soil!” Rhea, the archbishop of the church yells violently. With that, the Monastery’s students and knights charge. 

It’s not even sunrise and the battle has begun. Making it significantly darker for everyone on the battlefield. Though the remaining light creates some sort of atmosphere.

Byleth’s immediate reaction is to spring onto the closest soldier and whip them with her Sword Of The Creator knocking him back instantly she sieges through the field of soldiers almost endlessly. It’s like they’re infinite. 

Byleth stops to take a breather but she hears a thud behind her. She turns around to see her student, Petra who just killed a soldier.

“You should be careful of surroundings next time” Petra warns in her usual broken speech. 

“I suppose I wasn’t paying attention. Thank-Petra!” Byleth screams as Petra is impaled from behind by a lance. Byleth instantly whips her long-range sword at the soldier, killing him instantly.

Byleth goes over to Petra and kneels down next to her.

“Professor...I” Petra coughs blood before she’s able to finish her sentence. “I am...apologize...” Petra closes her eyes and her breath stops. 

“Petra!” Byleth has no choice but to move on. She moves to the middle path, the most dangerous part, with the most soldiers. As soon as that happens, she sees someone run past her so fast she couldn’t even distinguish who it was.

“For...Jeralt!” The redhead yells as she attempts to thrust her lance into an imperial general. The man dodges and his blue hair subordinate thrusts his gauntlets towards her unaware direction. Saving the general. It was another student, Leonie. She trained under Byleth’s father and was crushed upon hearing about his death.

“Thanks for the save Caspar! Great thinking” The brown haired general praised his subordinate.

“Thanks, Randolph! Anything for our family” Caspar states back to his assumed relative. 

This moment makes Byleth realize that saving her students was the priority. This isn’t any ordinary force. She especially realizes that after looking to her right and seeing a terrifying monster, the same as what she saw in the Holy Tomb where Edelgard initially started her betrayal.

Too befuddled by the monster and Leonie’s death she failed to see Death himself marching towards her.

“It’s you...” It was the Death Knight. His menacing, distorted voice echoed and struck fear into her. This may be the most emotion she’s ever felt since her father’s death.  
“I’ve been looking forward to a challenge. All I’ve gotten were weaklings, easily struck down by my scythe”

Death Knight gallops towards her ready to strike. Byleth readied her sword.

“Squirm for me!” The Death Knight battle cried. 

“Wait!” But out of nowhere someone jumps in the way. All Byleth hears is a blood-curdling scream. The person’s fall almost happened in slow motion for Byleth.

“Mercedes...” The Death Knight mutters. Without words the Death Knight rides away on his blacked-out horse.

“Mercedes!” Byleth instantly rushes to her aid. But alas, it was too late. Mercedes was already dead. Byleth feels an unfamiliar feeling. A feeling she hasn’t felt since what happened to her father. Sadness. Tears. Byleth looked up and screamed but upon doing so she notices something. Ingrid’s up in the air on her Pegasus. She looks to her left to see the ballista taking aim. 

“No!” Byleth screams bloody murder. She sprints to the ballista. And whips her sword at the operator but the shot was taken before the sword reached. The archer at the ballista was killed and the green-haired professor looked up, just in time to see the arrow make contact with Ingrid’s pegasus. 

Like shooting a bird, Ingrid and her mount drop and land across the battlefield. There’s no possible way she survived that. Byleth wanted to hope she was alive but, she didn’t want to see the body.

One by one she sees her students and the knights drop. The numbers are thinning. Blinded by rage she struck down anyone in imperial red. She doesn’t snap out of it until she’s hit by a black magic spell, knocking her to the ground.

“Lady Edelgard has told me much about you” A sinister-looking man, almost as sinister as the man in the holy tomb. “It’s regrettable that I wasn’t able to attend the academy to watch over her majesty. I appreciate you looking after her” The black-haired mage thanks in a sinister and sarcastic fashion. 

“What are you planning, Hubert?” A green-haired young man approaches behind him.

“We’re taking her to her majesty up in back lines. Inform Ladislava that we’re taking a hostage” Hubert orders.

“Ugh, fine” The boy started walking over.

“That means to run, Linhardt!” With that strict order, Linhardt ran.

“Capture her!” He orders the soldiers. Byleth’s vision is getting woozy. All she sees is an arrow hitting Hubert’s soldier. 

“Argh! Kill her!” Hubert yells in the direction the arrow came from as he pulls it out of his shoulder. Byleth hears a familiar scream afterward. But with that she blacked out.

***

Byleth wakes up right next to Edelgard. She goes to unsheathe her sword but notices that not only her sword is gone but her hands are bound with rope.

“You’re awake” The former Flame Emperor acknowledges. “You should’ve joined me, my teacher. If that happened then maybe destruction ahead wouldn’t have happened”

Byleth looks ahead the battlefield set aflame. The church units not even making it close to Edelgard yet. The streets drenched with blood. Almost everyone dead. She sees two generals-Caspar and Randolph was it? They continue to tear through the church units with ease. She sees the body of Leonie and Mercedes in the distance. Still, in the same spots, they were before. Bernadetta’s body in the middle of the path as well. She must’ve been the one to shoot Edelgard’s vassal. Countless bodies of students and knights. 

“What shall we do with her Lady Edelgard?” Hubert asks as his shoulder is being healed by the green-haired boy. 

“Keep her here. She’ll watch her mistakes and defect to our side”

“No Edelgard!” The professor rejects.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll never join you! After what you’ve done to your own friends!?”

“What happened to them is regrettable. But it’s their fault for not joining me sooner”

“Have you no empathy in your heart?”

“I do. That’s exactly why I’m doing this. Every day someone suffers from the crest system. We saw it first hand with Miklan Gautier. My goal is to reform the crest system. The deaths that come with that are regrettable but it’s the price to pay for equality. Their deaths are out of my control”

“Lady Edelgard!” A woman on a Wyvern swoops in delivering a message. “I’ve just been informed to your request that both the house leaders have been eliminated”

“Good. Thank you Ladislava. It seems Black Eagles was the greatest house after all” Edelgard tries to make light out the situation.

“You ordered Lucina and Ophelia’s deaths? If you really did have empathy you wouldn’t have ordered them to be killed”

“I did no such thing. I just asked to be informed if they were killed. They were sent by the Kingdom and Alliance after all”

“You’re a monster, Edelgard!”

“The church is corrupt! They’ve been suppressing people and executing people for as long as it’s existed. People are killed and disowned for the crest system the church controls. To rid the crest system we must take down the church!”

Randolph and Caspar run-up to Edelgard. 

“Your majesty! We’ve successfully routed the enemy with the exception of the Archbishop!” Reported Randolph.

“We also captured some other girl. She had no will to live and wasn’t putting up much of fight so we decided to spare her and take her with us!” Caspar cut in.

“Now all that’s left is taking down Rhea. Seize her-“ Edelgard looks ahead and spots Rhea running towards her, pushing ten’s of solders out the way. Punching and cutting her way through the soldiers, running towards the group. The five, excluding Edelgard and Byleth, ready for battle.

“Stay back” Edelgard commands. “We’re going to negotiate with her”

Rhea takes a stop upon a nonfatal hit with a lance by one of the soldiers, right in front of the group.

“Rhea!” Byleth yells for her.

“Take a step further and she’s dead” Edelgard negotiates. Upon that offer, imperial Myrmidon’s surround Rhea from the back and stand behind Edelgard and Byleth. The Death Knight rides up and stops alongside Edelgard. Rhea drops the Sword Of Seiros.

“Let her go, Edelgard” Rhea begrudgingly orders. 

The sun starts to rise behind Edelgard.

“Surrender the monastery to us. Actually, I don’t have to ask. Capture her”

“No!” Byleth screams. 

Rhea starts to put her hand up as the soldiers close in on her. Quickly Rhea shoots an unknown light spell in Edelgard’s direction, hitting her.

“Ah!” Edelgard yells in pain. Without skipping a beat the soldiers attack Rhea piercing her with their spears.

“Byleth...I...love...you...” Rhea mutters as she’s being pierced by spears. She drops dead, and Edelgard is fine.

“Rhea!!!” Byleth lets out the most blood-curdling scream she can muster. 

***

“Lady Rhea” Byleth spots her on the terrace looking out into the clouds.

“Professor. What brings you here?” Rhea turns around with a delicate smile on her face. “You really should get to bed. The battle is tomorrow morning”

“I was worried about you. You seemed different today” Byleth states with nearly no emotion in her voice.

“I assure you, I am fine. But I must admit I’m worried about tomorrow” The archbishop admits. “I expect you, Manuela and Miriel to lead your students well tomorrow. We don’t want casualties”

“My main priority is to protect you”

“That’s sweet of you. I have a few confessions to make. I’ll keep them for after the battle though. But there is one I want to make now”

“That is?”

“I am incredibly selfish to the fault of using my status to attempt to revive my mother. The goddess, Sothis. So selfish that I attempted to revive her in means of your mother and you”

“The goddess is your mother? Sothis? Wait”

“That’s right. I tried to make you the progenitor god. And, I succeeded. All because I wanted to see my mother again. Your mother most likely wouldn’t have died if I didn’t try with her. I wasn’t initially going to try with you until it looked as though both you and your mother were going to die at your birth. Your mother, Sitri begged me to save your life, just as I did hers”

“I’m the progenitor god?”

“With your hair and your power...there’s no doubt”

“So that’s what happened...” Byleth realizes. “You’re the goddess's child?”

“I’m actually Seiros... and I am no longer fit to run the Church Of Seiros. I was selfish with my actions and it’s started a war. After this, I wish for you to lead the Church”

“You want me to be Archbishop?”

“I’m not asking you to be my mother. I just want you to be yourself. Even at the ceremony at the Holy Tomb...I’m almost glad it failed”

“I’m sorry?”

“I want you by my side. I love you. Dearly. And so, I must ask... Will you accept this ring and marry me? If you feel the same, I would want nothing more than spend my life with you”

“Rhea...I love you too” Byleth pulls a ring out of her pocket. The very ring her father gave her mother.

“You brought a ring as well? I am overcome with joy...”

“Shall we spend the rest of our night with each other? Like it shall be our last?”

“Nothing would make me happier...”

***

“Pity. I was...hoping to capture her” Edelgard catches her breath, disappointed. 

“I’ll heal you” Linhardt volunteers to Edelgard.

Rhea’s corpse hits the ground with a thud. Byleth’s face was red with fury and sadness. Eyes almost closed with an ocean's worth of tears. Everyone who’s ever mattered to her is dead.

Quickly, she cuts the ropes binding her wrists with the Myrmidon behind her’s sword and kicks the sword out of his hand, catching and, instantly thrusts it towards Edelgard. She moves out of the way in time. Byleth instantly runs towards Rhea but is tripped by a soldier's lance and lands next to Rhea’s body. 

Byleth’s body is being pierced by multiple spears. The pain is unbearable. 

“Rhea...every...one...I’ll be with-“ Byleth chokes on her blood. Her eyelids start to close. Her last sight is Edelgard and the empire’s generals looking down on her. The seven of them say nothing. Until Edelgard decides to speak.

“Oh, how I wish that you could’ve been on my side”


End file.
